There's an interesting interview with Steve Albini in the forthcoming issue of Uncut, where he talks about various albums he's been involved with over the years. One of them is PJ Harvey's "Rid Of Me". "Around that point, Polly was a wicked guitar player," Albini says. "One of the things that I think she lost after she moved away from the band format, and into the solo artist format, is that she doesn't show off her guitar playing any more - she's not in a situation where her guitar playing matters as much." I wonder what Albini will make of Harvey's new album? It's called "White Chalk", and there is barely any guitar on it. Instead, this is a piano album, a record of great beauty, austerity and discreet power. The first thing you notice about it, though, as "The Devil" begins, is that there's a pronounced change in her voice. Far from the deep, carnal swagger that dominated "Uh Huh Her", Harvey's voice is pitched higher, and is much more fragile-sounding. "White Chalk" is not, for once, a PJ Harvey record that will draw the usual Patti Smith comparisons. In fact, the first point of reference that springs to mind as "The Devil" rides along on firmly plonked piano and tambourine, is the ethereal soul of Laura Nyro. The relative bounce of this proves to be a bit of a red herring, though. For much of "White Chalk", there's a sombre austerity to proceedings, epitomised by the cover portrait of Harvey sat, prim in white gown, looking for all the world (as our pic researcher Phil astutely points out) like a Whistler portrait. There's a touch of antique gothic here, as you might imagine, a hint of romantic spirit struggling to express itself in a tightly-buttoned environment. The imagery is visceral and loaded: words "are tightening around the throat of the one I love" in "Dear Darkness"; "Grow Grow Grow" involves planting roses and tramping earth down beneath "twisted oak groves"; "Scratch my palms, there's blood on my hands," she observes in the title track. "When Under Ether" has the atmosphere of a haunted Victorian hospital, a tripping song far away from the raptures of psychedelia. It's a short record (33 minutes, I think) of 11 songs, and the nearest antecedent I can remember in Harvey's back catalogue are those piano nocturnes on "Is This Desire?" (especially "When Under Ether", for some reason). At other times ("Broken Harp" and "White Chalk" itself), I'm faintly reminded of Will Oldham, his meticulous, emotionally-charged minimalism - though "White Chalk" escalates into something discreetly epic, a Morricone sketch. As far as I know, the only other musicians are the faithful Eric Drew Feldman and the great Jim White, a new recruit, on drums. White is well trained in this sort of understated music, having worked plenty with Chan Marshall, and he brushes his kit so stealthily at times as to be practically invisible. The idea, clearly, is to put all the focus on the piano and the voice. Sometimes, Harvey's vocals are treated and dislocated: on "To Talk To You" her tone has a voluptuous soft-focus shape a bit like that of Liz Fraser (in This Mortal Coil, rather than in the over-varnished clutter of The Cocteau Twins, though). Once or twice, when the songs become less impressionistic and more immediate ("Silence", especially), there's a momentum which sounds like a ghostly, subversive response to the dominant piano rock of Coldplay, Keane et al. "White Chalk", of course, sounds nothing like that: it's far too odd and intimate and cobwebby for mass singalongs in the O2 Dome, I'm sure. It's also, I think, one of the most compelling albums that Harvey has made. That confrontational crunch of guitar and stentorian bass voice may be absent (though not gone forever, I suspect), but an identifiable musical character remains: balancing, perhaps more overtly than ever, shyness with great passion. Thirty seconds before the record ends, in "The Mountain", she lets out this great melodious banshee wail, very Kate Bush actually, and sounds like she's making an escape from the formal strictures she's imposed on herself. It's a thrilling moment of liberation, but it'd be meaningless without all the atmosphere and tension which precedes it.

I guess there are a few recurring subjects on Wild Mercury Sound, little hives of activity that I seem to keep visiting again and again. Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace label is one, and I need to tell you about the mighty new Magik Markers LP sometime soon. But the extended, diverse and interwoven Thompson and Wainwright folk dynasties is definitely another. Like the turnout for Rufus Wainwright's "Release The Stars", the gang's all here for this rare and lovely album by Linda Thompson - even Richard Thompson, in spirit, who contributed "the idea" for the verses on "Blue & Gold". That song was actually written by Linda and their son, Teddy Thompson, whose contributions here are so strong that they make me want to revisit those solo records of his that I always found rather bland and underwhelming. Teddy's best friend Rufus is here, of course, having written a quite brilliant song, "Beauty", especially for the project. Wainwright has a good grasp of the extent of Linda's talents, I think: he doesn't just see her as this stern siren of British folk, he understands how well her voice works in more theatrical settings. Consequently, "Beauty" is both vivacious and restrained, a chamber piece with a subtly roistering undertow. Rufus' friend (keep up!) Antony Hegarty joins in, too, and it's nice to hear his more playful, bluesy gargle instead of the pining melancholic thing that he normally brings out for his numerous guest appearances. Martha Wainwright is here too, inevitably, adding harmonies to possibly Teddy and Linda's best song, "The Way I Love You" (John Kirkpatrick, the accordionist who was such a critical part of the Richard & Linda set-up in the '70s, drops in on this one, too). There's also a good song, "Nice Cars", by a scion of the tribe previously unknown to me, daughter Kamila Thompson, plus various Carthys, Maria Muldaur's daughter Jenni, and the great string arranger Robert Kirby. A couple of things occur to me, having just written all this. One is that there's a risk - which I've totally fallen into - of cataloguing the guest stars at the expense of Linda Thompson herself. In fact, she's a still, luminous presence in the centre of all the comings and goings, her voice still possessing all the grave strength of her '70s heyday. The supporting cast are, thankfully, discreet players, and it's remarkable how uncluttered "Versatile Heart" is. We've been working our way through quite a few versions of "Katie Cruel" in the last few months (most notably those by Karen Dalton and Bert Jansch), but Linda Thompson has a decent crack at it, too; a faster trot through than most. Better still, she takes Tom Waits' anti-war lament, "Day After Tomorrow", and probably betters the original. It's a great song for Thompson, ideally suited for the mix of solemn authority and compassion that seems to come so easily to her. I guess the other fear about concentrating on the famous circle of friends and relations so much, is that the whole clan might sometimes seem like a cosy (if historically dysfunctional) elite. The feel of "Versatile Heart", however, is that kind of intimate musical understanding which the folk world treasures so highly; one song here is a tribute to Bob Copper, who celebrated the pleasure and power of singing with your family so effectively. I'm reminded, most of all, of a show on London's South Bank a few years ago, which was ostensibly a family and friends session involving Rufus, Martha, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Linda and Teddy and one or two other second cousins whose names escape me. It was like being ushered into the home of a family whose singalongs somehow managed not to be self-indulgent or in-jokey, whose warmth kind of inducted you into their charmed circle. That's the vibe of "Versatile Heart". But anyway, the Reviews Ed has just put Alice Coltrane on and the artroom are hassling me for copy. PJ Harvey tomorrow, all being well.

Well, it’s here, the record I’ve been looking forward to with a mix of high excitement and an anticipatory dread that it might not be the album I’ve been waiting for. I’m talking about the new Babyshambles album, the follow-up to Down In Albion, which a lot of people just didn’t get on with but I loved to the point where over the last year and more I’ve played endlessly and been endlessly thrilled by – and I’m not just saying that to further annoy Jeff Tweedy. The still-untitled new album fetched up on my desk last week – by coincidence only a couple of hours before I set off to see errant Shambles guitarist Patrick Walden make a return to active service at the Rock Against racism 30th anniversary concert at Hackney Empire. It was accompanied as most advance CDs are these days with enough cautionary small print on the sleeve to make you think it should have been delivered by a bailiff of the court and some burly members of the constabulary. Well, I’ve checked through the small print and while it’s hot on unauthorised duplication – beheading seems to be the preferred punishment for burning or uploading the thing – there’s nothing I can see that tells me I can’t write about it. So here are some first thoughts. As a huge fan of what the majority of its noisy critics dismissed as Mick Jones’ ramshackle production of Down In Albion, I have to admit to a certain palpable nervousness about its follow up, which I wasn’t at first entirely thrilled to learn was going to be produced by Stephen Street. Mick it seemed to me had on DIA found a sound to match Babyshambles reckless waywardness, created out of sessions that by subsequent reputation were somewhat chaotic a musical universe unique to the band – a desolate gloaming, at times, that crackled with gripping tension, fractured beauty and a conspicuously English lyricism that also harnessed the singular firepower of Walden’s unpredictably thrilling guitar. Fans on various Babyshambles forums have been bracing themselves for something approaching the worse here – worried not so much about he album’s contents because they are already familiar with the bulk of the songs, but how those songs would sound, rendered by Stephen Street, concerns as I say I largely shared. As it happens, all parties can relax. I’ve been playing the album all weekend, and it sounds great. Street as expected has given them a fuller, brighter sound, free of DIA’s narcotic murk and clatter – to which it teasingly hints via the discordant guitar squall that introduces opener “Carry On Up The Morning” – and gone for dazzle rather than darkness, a radio-friendly glare replacing the wracked static of DIA. As my wife is fond of pointing out, if you stripped Pete’s vocals from DIA, the album would still notably sound like Babyshambles, thanks to Pat’s guitar. Here however, Street’s more generic production means that there’s an extent to which the band on their own could be just about anyone – until, that is, Pete comes in and then they just couldn’t be anyone else. I have to say that Street’s approach makes pretty good sense of Pat’s absence, so while there’s nothing like the splintery eruptions of, say, “Pipedown” or “8 Dead Boys”, there are poptastic anthems a-plenty. The band sound great, too, powered by a more conventional guitar assault, for sure, but that’ll guarantee mass audience singalongs on the forthcoming arena tour. There are inevitably more brooding moments on powerfully-mustered tracks like Unbilotitled” and “Unstookietitled” and the closing acoustic lament of “The Lost Art Of Murder”, with Bert Jansch on guitar, is unbearably lovely. More on this later, I’m sure. Meanwhile, if you’d like to see “Up The Morning” from DIA as high as possible in the charts on download sales along, go to http://www.myspace.com/upthecharts The track listing for the new Babyshambles album, by the way is: Carry On Up The Morning Delivery You talk Unbilotitled Side Of the Road Crumb Begging Unstookietitled French Dog Blues There She Goes Baddies Boogie Deft Left Hand The Lost Art Of Murder